Waterproof garment



June 12, 1 951 B, HIGGINS 2,556,621

WATERPROOF GARMENT Filed Jan. 27, '1947 2 OUTER FABR/o LAYER [NA/ER FABRIC. LAYER FENETRABLE BY RAIN PENETRABLE EY RAIN AND STAND/N6 WATER. BUT NOT FENETRABLE BY STANDING WATER.

A horneys Patented June 12 1951 2,556,621 I WATERPROOF GARMENT Eric Berkeley Higgins, Welwyn Garden City,

England Application January 27, 1947, Serial No. 724,707

1 The invention relates to weatherproof garments.

In known methods of making weatherproof garments, it has been the practice to choose for the fabric which'comes into contact with water one which is water-impenetrable even to the extent of becoming air impenetrable; for example, oilskins, rubber mackintoshes, self-sealing fabrics and so forth. Again, where water repellence has been relied upon, the protective cloth has been of close plain weave and any decorative effects such as floating threads have been avoided.

The practice referred to has had the effect of limiting the choice of fabrics for use in allweather clothing. Cloths which are water-penetrable have been avoided.

It has now been found that it is not necessary for the external fabric to be resistant to the passage of rain through it provided it be non-absorbent as to its constituent material and provided it be used with a backing fabric or lining which" has been rendered water-repellent though not necessarily impenetrable to rain when used alone.

As an experimental definition of rain penetration the passage of water through the fabric under a minute test on the standard Bundesmann testing machine (Tentative Textile Standards Numbers '7 and 8, 1942), is taken as a standard throughout this specification.

. For simplicity, the majority of the following description will deal with two-ply composite fabric garments but the invention is not confined to such garments as is explained more fully below.

The invention has the advantage of permitting a wider range of choice of the outer layer of fabric in weatherproof garments and such fabric layer may be of an open fancy weave having in itself no weatherproof qualities, while the garment as a whole has good weatherproof qualities. Hence such garments may be made which are at least equally serviceable to those at present in use but which have a more attractive appearance.

Thus, it has been found possible to use a fancy woolen cloth such as would normally be made up into a garment for evening wear indoors and back it with a cheap Utility lining to make a composite fabric impervious to rain. To do this, the woollen material maybe waterproofed so as to render the threads non-absorbent though the cloth will still remain penetrable to rain. The lining is rendered water-repellent, so that the threads will remain internally dry but the rainpenetrability of the fabric as a whole still remains at a relatively high value. When the two materials thus proofed are brought together, the composite fabric is found to be impenetrable to long exposure to rain and as well as, or better than, if the cloth used was much closer and more firmly woven.

Again it has been found that if the outer and 1 Claim. (01. 2-87) selected.

'2 innerlayersare of thesame material, then two flimsy cloths can give a better resistance to rain penetration than one good cloth, though this latter has more weight of material than the sum of the former two. Consequently, according to my invention, production costs are less, and fancy and beautiful cloths can be employed and yet give better functional effects than has hitherto been possible.

The new effect is best and most economically realised, judged from the standpoint of the raw material used, where the outer fabric departs most widely in design from the simple close I weaves of known practice, for example where soft-twisted and bump yarns are worked into loose and fluffy fabrics, or when pile and raised-cloths,

brocades, imitation caraculs and astrakhans, and figured and fancy twills and sateens making free use of long floating threads, or knitted The linings since they are only -required'to present a water-repellent surface, may be of the simplest weave, and, having regard to the yarns and constitution (picks and ends) employed, may be given in practice the theoretically most'efiicient make up which can be realised with cloths of by no means as close a weave as now used; and of low weight.

The invention as has been stated above is not limited to garments made from two-ply fabrics and either the outermost layer or the lining layer or both may be composed of two or more ply fabrics. Furthermore the lining layer of the invention need not .be the only lining and may be backed by an additional lining for warmth or to. improve the appearance of the inside of the gar-- Example I The cloths chosen for this example were proofed brown woollen astrakhan, and proofed utility cotton check lining. The tests for water penetrability were done on a standard Bundesmann tester (Tentative Textile Standards Nos. '7 and 8, 1942) and the results are in cubic centimetres of water found to pass through a specimen of the cloth in 10 minutes, under the fabrics, are

. 3 standard conditions of test which is equivalent to 2 hours heavy rain.

Unproofed check utility lining 417 Unproofed woollen astrakhan 483 Proofed check utility lining 102 Proofed woollen astrakhan" 119 Proofecl woollen astrakhan" backed by proofed lining Example II The above example was repeated using a cotton astrakhan.

Proofed cotton astrakhan 266 Proofed check utility lining 102 Proofed cotton astrakhan" backed by proofe'cl lining 0 Example III A series of composite two-ply fabrics were made up for test purposes using as the outer layer a series of 6 ornamental cotton, woolen and union fabrics all of which before proofing were subjected to the Standard Bundesmann test referred to in Example I. All of the specimens subjected to this preliminary test passed 500 c. c. of water, i. e. substantially all the water supplied to the specimen passed through it.

Lining layers of a proofed cotton and proofed cellulose acetate were employed, comparable figures for the materials before and after proofing being, cotton lining 306 c. c. and 8 c. c., acetate lining'594 c. c. and 101 c. c. Figures for the outer layer after proofing for the different fabrics and for composite fabrics made therefrom are given in the following table.

It will be seen that the compound fabrics using either proofed cotton or proofed acetate linings had excellent rainproof qualities although the proo fed outer fabric was very permeable to rain as also was the proofed acetate lining material.

I claim:

A rain proof garment comprised of a laminated material composed of two separate contiguous layers of fabric each of which is of an open porous weave substantially pervious to air and of itself readily susceptible to the passage of rain therethrough, said laminated material comprising an outer layer consisting of fabric woven from threads composed of fibres taken from the group consisting of hydrophobic fibres, Waterrepellent fibres and hydrophobic water-repellent fibres, the threads being so arranged that the layer is readily pen'etrable both by rain and by water standing in contact therewith and an inner layer consisting of a fabric woven from threads composed of water-repellent fibres, the threads of the inner layer fabric being so arranged that though the fabric is readily penetrable by rain it is impenetrable by water standing in contact therewith.

ERIC BERKELEY HIGGINS.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,189,408 Turner July 4, 1916 1,326,630 Barker Dec. 30, 1919 1,697,877 McLean Jan. 8, 1929 2,012,240 Cogno Aug. 20, 1935 2,306,222 Pat'node so. 22, 1942 2,441,746 Belnath May 18, 1948 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 139,667 Great Britain Mar. 11, 1920 424,225 Great Britain 9. Feb. 18, 1935 

